Transcript Document 7334305

Welcome to USC CSCI597!
• This course provides a series of expository lectures to
introduce Ph.D. students to the breadth of research topics
in CS (and, to some extent, beyond). The idea is to cycle
through the subareas of USC research in CS each
semester.
• First-year Ph.D. Students are required to enroll for 1 unit
of CSCI 597 for the first 2 semesters of the Ph.D.
Program. (Applicable only to students enrolling in Summer
of 2000 or later.)
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Welcome to USC CSCI597!
• Lectures: M 12:00-12:50pm, OHE-122
• Office Hours: M 2-4, HNB-30A
• Grading: Must attend all lectures and complete all
assignments with satisfactory results.
• Enrollment: First-year Ph.D. Students are required to
enroll for 1 unit of CSCI 597 for the first 2 semesters of
the Ph.D. Program.
• Web site: http://iLab.usc.edu/classes/2007cs597f/
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More on grading / assignments
• In the first or last 5 minutes of each lecture: short 5minute quiz about the contents of the previous lecture.
• Paper will be provided, but bring a pen or pencil.
• Questions will be easy, but…
• You must be present, and
• On time!
• Quizzes will be collected immediately at the end of the 5minute period.
• There will be no opportunity for submitting late quizzes.
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More on grading / assignments
• Each quiz graded on a scale
• From 0 (not turned in, no answer, all wrong answers, …)
• To 5 (all correct answers)
• To pass you will need to get a cumulative grade of
3n or more, where n is the number of
assignments handed out during the semester.
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Our focus in this class
• We focus on USC-CS research
• Speakers will be from the department, including ISI and ICT
• This class complements but does not replace normal seminars
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Ph.D. Research
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How
How
How
How
to
to
to
to
read papers?
keep up-to-date with research?
determine novelty of an idea?
write papers?
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How to read papers
• Be focused
• Use google and books extensively
• Start with reviews and book chapters, then go on with topical
research as you are already more familiar with the field
• Be critical – learn to identify weak papers
Read as much as you can. You want to become the world expert in
your research domain.
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How to keep up-to-date with research
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Check online journals regularly
Check online search engines regularly
Go to conferences
Go to USC/UCLA/Caltech/other research seminars
Talk with people – identify key researchers in your topic, then meet
with them when they come over to USC for a talk
• Check conference web sites
• Check lab web sites
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Medline / PubMed
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/
• Created by NIH
• Moderated (selected journals, some degree of human checking)
• Mostly for the biological sciences
• Increasingly, provides links to PDF versions of papers in a growing
subset of the journals covered
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Getting the bibliography record
• Try the tools we have developed at
http://iLab.usc.edu/bibTOhtml/
• Example:
medkey visual attention
lists papers matching the keywords
medref visual attention >> mybib.bib
grabs the medline records, convert to bibtex,
add to end of local bibliography file
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ISI Web of Knowledge
• http://isiknowledge.com
• Wide array of journals and conference proceedings, broad science
and engineering coverage
• Moderated (selected publications, some human intervention)
• Commercial product, USC has a campuswide subscription (based on
matching IP address to the 128.125.x.x)
• Search not only for papers by keywords, authors, etc. but also for
papers that cite a given paper, or for papers that cite the work of a
given author.
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ResearchIndex
• http://researchindex.org
• Created by NEC research
• Autonomous, unmoderated, web crawler looking for PDFs
• Mostly about computer science and related (e.g., robotics, etc.)
• Wide coverage, but only of those papers that are online somewhere
• Will return a variety of documents published in a variety of places
or not published at all – always double-check that the document
you are interested in has some backing (e.g., is a preprint version
of a paper published in a well-known journal)
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USC Library online resources
• http://www.usc.edu/libraries/eresources/
• Listing and links to all journals for which USC has an online
subscription (click on: eJournals)
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Google scholar
• New kid on the block
• Returns papers and links to other papers that cite them
• Links to other databases
• Links to the USC library system
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How to determine the novelty of an idea
• Be an expert in the field
• Check with your advisor and other researchers
• Check at conferences
• Send it to a conference and gather reviews & reactions
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Your Ph.D. at USC
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The goal of a Ph.D.
What it takes to achieve a great Ph.D.
Courses
Advisor
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The goal of a Ph.D.
Make a significant impact onto a specific research issue, such that
nobody working on this issue can afford to ignore your work.
• Several components:
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Need to become an expert in the field
Develop novel ideas
Implement them
Thoroughly test and validate them
Make your results known through conferences, informal meetings, and
journal publications
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The Questions Posed to You
• What do you want to get out of the PhD?
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a meal-ticket
stepping-stone to industry
a milestone in an intellectual quest
something else?
• To what extent do you expect your thesis topic to result
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from your motivation or
your supervisor's direction?
• How do you get information to inform yourself
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in your research area
in computer science generally
in broader intellectual topics
in the arts and current events?
• What are you doing to educate yourself as as a citizen of the
world, not just as a computer scientist?
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How to achieve this
• Your Ph.D. is a race – get started as soon as possible!
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How to achieve this
• Your Ph.D. is a race – get started as soon as possible!
• Your Ph.D. will require work of an intensity that you have never
before encountered – need to be strong, dedicated and focused
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How to achieve this
• Your Ph.D. is a race – get started as soon as possible!
• Your Ph.D. will require work of an intensity that you have never
before encountered – need to be strong, dedicated and focused
• Your Ph.D. will be full of ambushes, deceptions and problems –
learn to deal with them efficiently
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How to achieve this
• Your Ph.D. is a race – get started as soon as possible!
• Your Ph.D. will require work of an intensity that you have never
before encountered – need to be strong, dedicated and focused
• Your Ph.D. will be full of ambushes, deceptions and problems –
learn to deal with them efficiently
• Your Ph.D. will not necessarily succeed – be very careful to keep it
under control
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How to achieve this
• Your Ph.D. is a race – get started as soon as possible!
• Your Ph.D. will require work of an intensity that you have never
before encountered – need to be strong, dedicated and focused
• Your Ph.D. will be full of ambushes, deceptions and problems –
learn to deal with them efficiently
• Your Ph.D. will not necessarily succeed – be very careful to keep it
under control
• Your Ph.D. is your most important, largest-scale achievement – not
anybody else’s. Hence, you must take control and be in charge!
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Courses
• It is important to study hard and do very well on courses
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Courses
• It is important to study hard and do very well on courses
• But don’t overdo it! Your Ph.D. is not about taking courses.
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Courses
• It is important to study hard and do very well on courses
• But don’t overdo it! Your Ph.D. is not about taking courses.
• During my Ph.D. I adopted the “fire-and-forget” strategy:
• Learn as much as possible
• Exploit the university and its resources to the maximum
• Spend a minimum amount of time on the homeworks – be focused,
efficient, do not drag it along forever, do not polish it
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Screening
• 1. Course work
Core courses
Research courses
Intellectual development
Find the balance as you hit that 3.5 GPA
Study what you need for your Ph.D.
• 2. Find a potential advisor and convince him/her that you can
make real progress in their research area.
NOTE: Several of the following slides contributed by Prof Michael Arbib.
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Breadth and Depth
At the time of screening, you may only know your
general research area: e.g., “networking” or “intelligent agents”.
You must “chart the territory” for a definite subarea
-- what are the key issues, the best books, journals and
conferences, who are the top researchers?
then you must define your own more focused subarea in which you will be
the world’s leading expert.
Choosing a sufficiently focused area and defining a 3-year
(more or less) research project can be time consuming and frustrating!
The right advisor should know more about the overall territory
than you do so that s/he can be your guide.
But to be a successful student, you should eventually know more
than your adviser about your narrow subarea!!
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Quals
1. Form a 5-person Quals committee: Usually 4 from the
department and one Outside Member who represents
the Graduate School.
2. Write a Quals Document
 Review the relevant literature
 Define the open problems you will work on
 Report on a completed piece of the research (similar to a
conference paper or half a chapter).
 Present a preliminary outline for your Ph.D. thesis with a
tentative timeline
3. Defend your Proposal orally in front of the committee
 The aim is not to convince the committee you should pass
but to maximize their feedback to focus and refine your
work on your dissertation.
4. Form a Ph.D. committee: Usually 3 to 5 members of your Quals
committee -- but you must include the Outside Member.
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Between Quals and Thesis Completion
• The thesis might take as little as one year or as many as
four -- when doing original research you cannot predict
what will happen:
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Your “predictions” in the quals timeline may be just right, but
Some problems may turn out to be much harder than predicted, while
Others may get solved by someone else while you are still working on
them.
• Thus the Quals Document is a general guideline, but may undergo
constant reshaping in response both to your own discoveries and
developments in the literature.
• As your work progresses see your advisor frequently and other
committee members more or less occasionally to report your
progress and get helpful feedback.
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Skills You May Acquire Along the Way
• Presenting papers at conferences
• Preparing articles for journal publication
• Writing a patent
• Helping your advisor prepare a research proposal
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Thesis
• The thesis is a sandwich:
• Introduction and Literature Review
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2 to 4 Research Chapters each similar
in Scope to a Publication
• Prospects for Future Research
• Key advice:
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Scope out the hot places to publish in your subarea.
Then maintain 2 versions of the “meat” chapters as you write them:
one for the thesis and one for publication.
In general your advisor will let you proceed to the Defense only when s/he
feels that you have a critical mass of original research
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Defense
1. Two weeks before the defense, submit a complete draft
of the thesis to your committee
2. The defense will usually have 2 parts:
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A 1-hour public lecture on the main points of your thesis
followed by a closed door session in which you will be closely
questioned by the committee about any and all aspects of the thesis.
3. In general, you will require a few weeks work to polish the thesis in
a way that addresses the questions raised by your defense.
4. Both in preparing for the exam and in submitting the thesis, you will
be responsible to complete all Grad School paperwork and follow all
the guidelines.
5. Get a robe and mortar board and go to Commencement for proud
photographs with your family, Dr. X!!
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Finding an Advisor
Two different strategies:
- Go where you can learn the most about what interests
you most
- Go where the money is
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Your advisor
• Can help you with any issue – don’t be shy to ask!
• Generally speaking, is understanding – don’t hesitate to criticize or
complain (nicely)
• Is knowledgeable – please do listen and implement his/her advice
• Is interested only in motivated, hard-working students – unless you
are one of these, you will not get much attention from her/him
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Your advisor
… is extra-busy!
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many deadlines every day
many ongoing projects
teaching takes a lot of time
need to write proposals, papers, reports, organize committees,
organize conferences, organize the lab, attend P.I. meetings,
manage the lab, render various services to the university, do
research, disseminate research via papers and many talks,
help students write papers, help other students (not only
from their own lab), lobby government agencies, babysit highprofile visitors, talk to the press, review papers, review
proposals, review conference abstracts, etc…
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What Advisors Want
• All advisors want to advance their careers, and thus hope
that your thesis will yield conference papers and journal
publications that will help their reputation and help them
get their grants renewed.
• Three styles:
• “Directed”: The advisor has already specified step-by-step
what an RA has to do on one of their grants and if you follow
these steps you will get a Ph.D.
• “Laissez-faire”: “Come and see me at quals and defense time.”
• “Negotiator”: Convince the advisor that you have your own goals
but then negotiate a thesis topic that advances your goals but also
allows you to learn from what the advisor and his/her group are
doing and contribute to the group’s progress.
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Interacting with your advisor
• Cut on non-work-related stuff
• When meeting, be sure to provide short reminder of context – your
have one Ph.D. project but your advisor is working on 10+ just like
yours in parallel
• When meeting, be prepared – your advisor has no time to waste
• If your advisor seems too busy – that’s probably because your
progress has not generated enough excitement yet. Work harder,
implement what s/he suggested, go beyond that, show lots of
results, … demonstrate that you are dedicating your life to your
project.
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Interacting with your advisor
• If possible, setup a weekly one-on-one meeting time.
• Take notes during the meeting
• At the end, summarize the key things you will do before the next meeting
• For this to work, before each meeting make sure that
• You have addressed the questions and pending issues raised during the
previous meeting.
• If you believe that a raised question actually was not worth addressing,
then be sure to explain why.
• This is very important because: your advisor may envision a
given step to be necessary for your research to go forward (e.g., run
a control experiment, perform a given analysis, replot the data in a
given way); as long as you don’t take that step, your advisor will be
stuck in his/her thinking because his/her beliefs have not changed.
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Beyond your advisor
• A secondary goal throughout my studies was to maximally benefit
from the incredible resources provided by the university.
• Identify key people and meet with them (you need to be prepared
and have things to show them)
• Identify key labs and hang around them
• Identify key facilities and exploit them
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Beyond your advisor
• Show your work to other professors and students – get feedback!
• In difficult situations, most professors will open their door to you –
but you need to do the first step.
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Ethical Issues
• What is plagiarism?
Using others’ work and misrepresenting it as being your own.
This includes:
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Cut & paste from the reading assigmnent
Cut & paste from the web
Cut & paste from books, other papers, etc.
Cut & paste from ANYTHING that is not your own!
Changing wording of a sentence but keeping the ideas
Summary which does not include proper references
Etc.
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Ethical issues
This and the following slides are from:
http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/student-conduct/ug_plag.htm
“Plagiarism is the unacknowledged and inappropriate use of the ideas
or wording of another writer.”
As defined in the University Student Conduct Code (published in the current
SCampus), plagiarism includes:
"The submission of material authored by another person but represented as
the student's own work, whether that material is paraphrased or copied in
verbatim or near verbatim form;"
"The submission of material subjected to editorial revision by another person
that results in substantive changes in content or major alteration of writing
style;" and
"Improper acknowledgment of sources in essays or papers." (§11.11)
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Example 1: Repeating Another's Words Without
Acknowledgment
Original Source (From Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death.
New York: Penguin, 1985. 127-128.)
“The television commercial is the most peculiar and pervasive form of
communication to issue forth from the electric plug....The move
away from the use of propositions in commercial advertising began
at the end of the nineteenth century. But it was not until the 1950's
that the television commercial made linguistic discourse obsolete as
the basis for product decisions. By substituting images for claims,
the pictorial commercial made emotional appeal, not tests of truth,
the basis of consumer decisions.”
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Example 1: Repeating Another's Words Without
Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version (essentially verbatim):
“Television commercials have made language obsolete as a basis for
making decisions about products. The pictorial commercial has
substituted images for claims and thereby made emotional appeal,
rather than tests of truth, the basis of consumer decisions.”
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Example 1: Repeating Another's Words Without
Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version (essentially verbatim):
“Television commercials have made language obsolete as a basis for
making decisions about products. The pictorial commercial has
substituted images for claims and thereby made emotional appeal,
rather than tests of truth, the basis of consumer decisions.”
Although the writer has changed, rearranged, and deleted words in the
version above, the text is essentially the same as the original
source. In paraphrasing, you take the writer's ideas and put them in
your own words. It is not a process of substituting synonyms or
rearranging the order of words. Even if the version above gave
credit to Postman for his ideas, the passage would be considered
plagiarized.
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Example 1: Repeating Another's Words Without
Acknowledgment
Correctly Paraphrased and Documented Version:
“Postman argues that television commercials do not use language or
"test of truth" to help viewers decide whether to buy a product.
Instead, they rely on images to create an emotional appeal that
influences consumers' decisions (127-128).”
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Example 1: Repeating Another's Words Without
Acknowledgment
Correctly Paraphrased and Documented Version:
“Postman argues that television commercials do not use language or
"test of truth" to help viewers decide whether to buy a product.
Instead, they rely on images to create an emotional appeal that
influences consumers' decisions (127-128).”
In the correctly paraphrased and documented version above, most of
the ideas have been paraphrased or restated in the writer's own
words. Quotation marks have been placed around a key phrase that
is taken directly from the original source. In addition, the name of
the author refers readers to a corresponding entry in the Works
Cited page, and the page number indicates the location of the
information in the source cited.
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Example 2: Presenting Another Writer's Argument or
Point of View Without Acknowledgment
Original Source (From Arlene Skolnick. Embattled Paradise. New York: Basic
Books, 1991. 11.):
“The changes in larger society, as well as their reverberations in the family, call
into question basic assumptions about the nature of American society, it
family arrangements, and Americans themselves. A "Cultural struggle"
ensues as people debate the meaning of change. One of these periods of
cultural upheaval occurred in the early decades of the nineteenth century;
a second occurred in the decades just before and after the turn of the
twentieth century. For the last thirty years, we have been living through
another such wave of social change.
Three related structural changes seem to have set the current cycle of family
change in motion: first, the shift into a "postindustrial" information and
service economy; second, a demographic revolution that not only created
mass longevity but reshaped the individual and family life course, creating
life stages and circumstances unknown to earlier generations; third, a
process I call "psychological gentrification," which involves an introspective
approach to experience, a greater sense of one's own individuality and
subjectivity, a concern with self-fulfillment and self-development. This is the
change misdiagnosed as narcissism.”
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Example 2: Presenting Another Writer's Argument or
Point of View Without Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version:
“Three periods of cultural upheaval in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
have caused major changes in American society. The first occurred during
the beginning of the nineteenth century, the second during the decades
before and after 1900, and the third has been underway for the last thirty
years. Three structural changes occurring during the current upheaval are
primarily responsible for changes in American families. These include the
development of a postindustrial information and service economy ,
demographics changes (including longer life spans that have created new
and different life stages), and an increased sense of individuality including
a desire for self-fulfillment and self development.”
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Example 2: Presenting Another Writer's Argument or
Point of View Without Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version:
“Three periods of cultural upheaval in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
have caused major changes in American society. The first occurred during
the beginning of the nineteenth century, the second during the decades
before and after 1900, and the third has been underway for the last thirty
years. Three structural changes occurring during the current upheaval are
primarily responsible for changes in American families. These include the
development of a postindustrial information and service economy ,
demographics changes (including longer life spans that have created new
and different life stages), and an increased sense of individuality including
a desire for self-fulfillment and self development.”
The writer of the passage above correctly paraphrases Skolnick's ideas
but does not give her credit for her ideas or line of argument. The
version on the next slide eliminates the plagiarism by attributing the
ideas to Skolnick.
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Example 2: Presenting Another Writer's Argument or
Point of View Without Acknowledgment
Correctly Documented Version
“According to Skolnick, three periods of cultural upheaval in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries have caused major changes in American society. The
first occurred during the beginning of the nineteenth century, the second
during the decades before and after 1900, and the third has been
underway for the last thirty years. Three structural changes occurring
during the current upheaval are primarily responsible for changes in
American families. These include the development of a postindustrial
informat ion and service economy, demographics changes (including longer
life spans that have created new and different life stages), and an
increased sense of individuality including a desire for self-fulfillment and
self development (11).”
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Example 2: Presenting Another Writer's Argument or
Point of View Without Acknowledgment
Correctly Documented Version
“According to Skolnick, three periods of cultural upheaval in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries have caused major changes in American society. The
first occurred during the beginning of the nineteenth century, the second
during the decades before and after 1900, and the third has been
underway for the last thirty years. Three structural changes occurring
during the current upheaval are primarily responsible for changes in
American families. These include the development of a postindustrial
information and service economy, demographics changes (including longer
life spans that have created new and different life stages), and an
increased sense of individuality including a desire for self-fulfillment and
self development (11).”
In the version above, a reader would be able to locate the source by finding
the title of Skolnick's book in the Works Cited page and looking on page 11,
the number indicated at the end of the paragraph.
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Example 3: Repeating Another Writer's Particularly Apt
Phrase or Term Without Acknowledgment
Original Source (From Arlene Skolnick. Embattled Paradise. New
York: Basic Books, 1991. 11.)
“Three related structural changes seem to have set the current cycle of
family change in motion: first, the shift into a "postindustrial"
information and service economy; second, a demographic
revolution that not only created mass longevity but reshaped the
individual and family life course, creating life stages and
circumstances unknown to early generations; third, a process I call
"psychological gentrification," which involves an introspective
approach to experience, a greater sense of one's own individuality
and subjectivity, a concern with self-fulfillment and selfdevelopment. This is the change misdiagnosed as narcissism.”
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Example 3: Repeating Another Writer's Particularly Apt
Phrase or Term Without Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version
The large number of "self-help" books published each year attest to Americans'
concern with self-improvement and achieving more fulfilling lives. This
process might be described as "psychological gentrification."
Correctly Documented Version
The large number of self-help books published each year attest to Americans'
concern with self-improvement and their desire to have a more fulfilling
life. Skolnick labels this process as "psychological gentrification" (11).
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Example 3: Repeating Another Writer's Particularly Apt
Phrase or Term Without Acknowledgment
Plagiarized Version
The large number of "self-help" books published each year attest to Americans'
concern with self-improvement and achieving more fulfilling lives. This
process might be described as "psychological gentrification."
Correctly Documented Version
The large number of self-help books published each year attest to Americans'
concern with self-improvement and their desire to have a more fulfilling
life. Skolnick labels this process as "psychological gentrification" (11).
As the example above illustrates, putting quotation marks around a borrowed
word or phrase is not sufficient documentation. You must also acknowledge
the author and give the page numbers so a reader would be able to consult
the original source and loc ate the word or phrase. In the original source,
Skolnick takes credit ("a process I call") for coining the term "psychological
gentrification." Quotation marks in the original appear to be used for
emphasis. Phrases in quotations should be cited unless they have become
common usage (e.g., "postindustrial" in the original source above).
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Remember…
• When you write a paper, you’ll remember all nice phrases you come
up with. This applies to others too!
• Professors can “feel” plagiarism very easily
• Professors often conduct extensive searches to check for plagiarism
• Professors are likely to know or have seen the material you come
across when writing a class paper
So… yes, do research and find material that can help you writing your
essay. But do not plagiarize that material!
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Regarding scientific papers…
• Readers and reviewers need to know that you are honest and that
you have a good command of the literature
• So… plagiarism just does not make sense!
• Indeed, if you write:
“Neurons in the early visual system respond to contrast between
two regions in the visual field rather than to the absolute amount of
light stimulation in a single region.”
• You will make a weaker point than
“The pioneering work of Kuffler (1953) and Hubel & Wiesel (1962)
has clearly demonstrated that neurons in the early visual system …”
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So, don’t be shy about citing others!
• WEAK: “There has been some research about autonomous robots,
but mostly confined to indoors environments.”
• STRONG: “A recent review by DeSouza & Kak (2002) suggests that
autonomous robot research has been mostly confined to indoors
environments.”
And remember that a lot of what you know stems from what you have
read!
• WEAK: Try to explain why previous research does not work, hence
your new work was required.
• STRONG: Show how previous research has established a basis for
your new work.
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For additional information
• SCampus
• http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/student-conduct/
• Office for Student Conduct
FIG-107
740-6666
• Google search for “plagiarism,” etc.
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